#OTD in 2011 | Chennai Super Kings became the first IPL team to defend their Title

On this day in 2011, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) secured a victory by 58 runs against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) at MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai. They became the first team to defend their IPL title in this pursuit. 

Both the teams had nine wins in 14 league matches, but RCB took the pole position due to one extra point due to a rain-disturbed game. 

CSK had beaten RCB in the Qualifier 1 by six wickets. Then, Challengers won the Qualifier 2 by 43 runs against Mumbai Indians to set up a finals clash. 

MS Dhoni won the toss and followed the same pattern of posting a big score and putting pressure on the opposition with the help of the spinners on a slow pitch at Chennai. 

The openers, Murali Vijay and Michael Hussey, perfectly timed the ball and hit sixes all over the park on the back of their terrific form in the tournament. CSK crossed the score of 50 runs in the powerplay overs. 

In the 11th over, Vijay completed his fifty off 29 balls, with the team also going past 100. He continued his onslaught and attacked every bowler to hit consistent boundaries, while Hussey also brought up his half-century in 40 balls. 

The left-arm spinner Syed Mohammad dismissed Hussey (63) in the 15th over of the innings. At this moment, CSK was at 159/1. 

With Abhimanyu Mithun going for plenty, captain Daniel Vettori bowled Chris Gayle, his full quota of four overs. Although Gayle did well in the first two overs, MS Dhoni hit two sixes off his third over. 

The left-arm pacer Sreenath Arvind put an end to the sublime innings of Vijay (95) and also took the wicket of Dhoni (22) in the 19th over. Gayle took two wickets in the final over, and CSK posted a score of 205 on the board. 

In the fourth ball of RCB’s innings, Ravichandran Ashwin took a prized scalp of the leading run-getter of the tournament Gayle (0). He followed it up to dismiss Mayank Agarwal (10) in the third over. 

AB de Villiers and Virat Kohli hit delightful boundaries to steer the team to 47 runs in six overs. 

However, AB (18) was adjudged LBW off Shadab Jakati in the seventh over. In his next over, the left-arm spinner took the wicket of Luke Pomersbach (2) as well. 

In the tenth over, Raina took the critical wicket of Kohli (35) to put RCB on the back foot. However, with over 140 runs needed in 10 overs, it was too much for the lower middle-order and tail-enders.

Saurabh Tiwary (42*) and Zaheer Khan (21) were the notable contributors, as RCB could only score 147 and lost by 58 runs. 

Murali Vijay was named ‘Player of the Match’ for his powerful knock, comprising four boundaries and six sixes. 

It was the first occasion when any team defended their title in the tournament’s history. Mumbai Indians became the second team to achieve this unique feat in 2020.